The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 53

three dnys," probably means "on tho third reaching answer? Whnt forger conk! hove dny." 0110 dny w11s consumed in the nsuril imngined sue h a verso ? short pilgrim-journoy. Hie absence at first Ver. 19.-How is it that ye sought me l wouhl oxoite no nltontion; on tho second, To tho gently veiled reproach of ~fory, ns they missed him still, they sought him Jesus replies, apparently with wonderment, in the various pilgrim-companies; and on with anothnr question. It ha<l cnme upon the dny following they found him in the him so quietly and yet with sue,h irresiotil,Je temple courts, with the doctors of the Lnw. forc,i that the temple of Go,! was his real Bittmg in the midst of the doctors, both eortidy home, that he mnrvelle,i at his hearing them, and asking them questions. mother's slowness of comprehensi0n. Wi1y In tho lornple enclosure, says the Talmud, should she have been eurpri-cd at !,is still tpere were three synagogues-one ot tbo lingering in the S[l.Cl'ed courts? Did shr, gate of the court of the Gentiles, another at not know who he was, and whence he came 7 the entrance of the court of the Ieraelites, a Then he added, Wist ye not that I mnst ho third iu the eouth-eaet part of the inner about my Father's business 1 There was rm court: it was in these that the rabbis ex- expression of Mary's which eviJi,ntly dis- pounded the Law. Among the famous tressed the Child J eeus. Godet even thinks doc tore, or rabbis, then living and teaching in that he discerns a kind of shudder in his Jerusalem, were the famous Hille!, then very quick reply to Mary's "thy father an<l I aged, verging, we e.re told, on his hundredth have sought thee sorrowing." "In my year; hie almost equally illustrious rival, Father's house, where my Father's wnrk ia Shammai; Gamaliel, the mo.eter of Saul of being done, there ought I to be busied. Tarsus; Jone.than, the compiler of the Chai- Didn't you know this?" But the twelve dee Paraphrase of the sacred books; Simeon, silent uneventful years of life at N nzareth, the son and successor of Hillel; Nicodemus, the poor home, the village carpentry, the who, some yeo.rs afterwards, came to Jesus natural development of the sacred Coild, by night, and, when the end was come, had gradually obscured for l\Iary and Joseph reverently assisted in laying the King's Son tue memories of the iDfancy. They had not with all honour in his tomb in Joseph of forgotten them, but time and circumstances Arimathma's garden. We may, with great had covered them with a veil. Now they probability, assume that amongst those were very gently reminded by the Boy's own "doctors" whom the Boy questioned at that quiet words of what had happened twelve Passover Feast, some if not all of these years before. Scholars hesitate whether or well-known men were sitting. The apo- not to adopt the rendering of the old Syriac cryphal Gospels, as usual, profeee to give us Version, "in my Father's house," instea,I of details where the true story is reverently the broader and VB~er " about my Falher's silent. The • Goepel of Thomas' (second bueinees," as the Greek will allow either century), for iDetance, tells us that Jesus, translation. It seems to ns the best to retain when on the road to Nazareth, returned of' the old rendering we love so well, "about hie own accord to Jerusalem, and amazed my Father's business." The whole spirit the rabbis of the temple by his solution of Jesus' after-teaching Icade us irresistibly of the hardest and most difficult questions to this interpretation of tLe Master's Jirst of the Law and the prophets. In an Arabic recorded saying. Goepel of somewhat later date than that Ver. 51.-And he went down with them, of Thomae, we find the Boy even teaching and ea.me to Naz:i.reth. The question of the astronomers the secrete of their own Mary, aud the quiet grave answer of the difficult study. Probably Stier'e simple Child Jesus, were all that seems to have words approach the nearest to the truth taken place. It served, no doubt, to bring here, when he suggests that hie questions back to Mary's mind what hau long passe<l, were "the pure questions of innocence and and the memory of which for her was begin- of truth, whioh keenly and deeply pene- ning somewhat to faue. Thie wue, uo doubt, trated iuto the oonfueed errors of the rab- one of the uses of the temple scene, but ii binical teaching." • had other and deeper purpo:;es to serve. It Ver. 48.-Son, why hast thou thus dealt was then, perhaps, as w" h:we already reve- with us 1 behold, thy father and I have rently surmised, in the gradual development sought thee sorrowing. Mary's words have and growth of the Redeemez, that conscioae- in them something of reproach. Josoph, it nese who he really was first dawned upon is noticeable, stands evidently apart; but "the Child Jeene." And was subjeot u.nto the mother, strangely as it wouhl seem at them, This recital of the temple scene, first, associates him in "thy father and the meeting with the great rabbis there, the I have sought thee sorrowing." Had she, few worue of surprise audreeseu by thti Boy then, forgotten the past? Who but Mary to Mary and Joseph when they sought him could havo repeattid thi.a sacred memory "sorrowing''-" as if it were po:::;siblt.~," to of hor mistake, anu or' tho Doy'a far- uso Stier II oxpreddion, for •• hiw to Lo in H nm GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BT. LUKE. [on. n. 1-62.